CONCEPT COLLECT

detail, Noah Breuer, First Basemen 1989 - ‘90, 2015 Topps Baseball Cards on Matboard

detail, Noah Breuer, Outfielders 1989 - ’90, 2015 Topps Baseball Cards on Matboard

detail, Noah Breuer, Randy, 2015 Acrylic on Wood Panel

detail, Noah Breuer, Dot Shape D1, 2015 Acrylic on Wood Panel

detail, Noah Breuer, Ken, 2015 Acrylic on Wood Panel

Ryan Schneider, Untitled, 2019, Oil Pigment on Wood

(Top left) Andy Warhol, Hans Christian Anderson, 1987, Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board (Top right) Andy Warhol, Kamiko, 1981, Screenprint on Stonehenge Paper. (Bottom right) Andy Warhol, Flowers (Hand Colored), 1074, Screenprint on Arches watercolor paper (Bottom left) Andy Warhol, Space Fruit: Pears, 1979, Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board

CONCEPT COLLECT: Works from the Permanent Collection, Masterworks on Loan, and Noah Breuer’s 2015 Baseball Card Collages & Paintings

Our Entry Gallery’s collection is curated to complement our featured exhibition in our adjacent galleries, Collecting Cuba.

The work on view speaks to collected artworks and items as well as the psychology around collecting. From sports cards to comic books and fine art, collecting can be an obsession, a form of catharsis, a way to create the world you want to live in or simply an investment. For many who collect, the value of their collection is not monetary but emotional. Collections allow people to connect themselves to a time in their lives they feel strongly about or a time and place they hope to be in. Some collect as a quest, a lifelong pursuit which may never be completed. When one collects, one experiments with presenting a part of the world that is important to them.

Those who collect as a form of investment may also be combining much of the above. Although some of the solely investment works will not see the light of day, locked away safely until it is once again available for auction.

Amongst these works on view in the Entry Gallery, we see an intertwining of various fronts of collecting and the collectible. Artist Noah Breuer combines his love for his 1989 and 1990 baseball cards with his passion for artmaking, utilizing both collage and painting. Andy Warhol made a great deal of work during his time. He had mass produced many of his artworks, especially in printmaking, making much of the work attainable and easily collectable. In Warhol’s print on view titled, “Kimiko”, Warhol created this portrait in homage to one his major collectors, Kamiko Powers. Artist Ryan Schneider has just entered his mid-career in which his course has thus far been built upon his painting work. Schneider had a solo exhibition with us in 2017 titled, Mojave Masks. See our website for more details. With this sculpture on view, we witness a pivot point artists’ infrequently make. This is because once an artist forms a collector base, many cannot afford the risk of shifting their medium or content. The hope is that the collectors also pivot their interest.

Collecting and investing is not only a considerable part of our Creative Economy but also a major part of living and sustaining our creative lives and histories. It helps us see a future and a world we want to be part of and live in.

The Schneider Museum’s Artist to Artist talk featuring Noah Breuer can be viewed here.